It's been a long long time since I've practiced copying morse code.. (last time I practiced, I was getting ready to take the copying test to get my general.. just before the dropped the requirement)

anyway.. it's been at least a year.. or more.. I really cant' remember the last time I Sat down and practiced copying.. anyhow...

I learned back then it was better to learn to copy the characters at 'full speed' even if the speed of the actual word wasn't that high..

well I started the program out at a fairly slow pace.. somewhere around 10wpm character speed, with an actual word speed of less then that.. and I actually found it almost 'annoying' to try and copy at a character speed less then 25wpm.. I find it actually harder to copy the letter when it's long and drawn out..

IIRC.. I Was comfortably copying around 9wpm just before they dropped the code requirement.. i was just starting to try and copy things as 'words' not individual letters and that was about as far as I got.. pressures of life.. you know how that goes.

I always attributed this to the rhythm of the character breaking down or disappearing when it's too slow. At 20+, there is a clear pattern/rhythm to each letter, whereas at less than 10, the character breaks down into individual, distinct dits and dahs, and the silence between the sounds becomes material.

If you're doing it right, you don't hear the dits and dahs (no counting!) - you hear the distinctive pattern of the entire letter.

Start listening to W1AW code practice broadcasts some days they start at 35WPm and work their way down to 10WPM, others they start at 10 and work up to 35. Just be listening at all speeds. You'll start being able to pick out letters and words and increasingly higher speeds. Exposure, immersion, is very effective. Plan on participating in the CW Sweepstakes in November - you can hear a station give his exchange to others, and when it's your turn, the only difference will be the sequence number. Pretty soon you'll be copying solid, and at higher speeds than you thought you could. See you in the SS -

This can vary from person to person and even for an individual. I can head copy basic qso's at 30 wpm but my plain text head copy rate is 18 -- 20 wpm or the speed of the the W1AW bulletin. I'm no CW speed demon. Still, I suspect that most operators have strengths and weaknesses in this area. I certainly do.

This is indeed true, ive just come back to learning morse, and having read 'the art and skill of radio-telegraphy' start my sessions well above where im comfortable (25wpm character speed, 21wpm actual) and can only pick out odd letters and numbers. But then when i drop down to 9, 12, or even 18wpm actual speed, i find i have loads of time between characters and can take it much easier than if i had started the session at a comfortable speed

Yes it is frustrating when communications is slow and your brain is running so much faster than the communications rate.

And it's true whether it's CW or voice.

Classic Bob and Ray bit is the "Slow Talkers of America". The frustration as Ray tries to fill in Bob's words before Bob says them is very palpable :-)

And it's not so much the actual WPM but the lack of content or lack of effective communictions that is the frustration. Sometimes especially in contests I hear two contest-type cw ops trying to complete an exchange yet their amp keying is defective or they are trying to key with a PC's contest program and they keep stepping on each other. And what would be a very quick and effective 8 second exchange at 20 WPM turns into a very long drawn out 2 minute lack of exchange at 35 or 40 WPM. Listening to this in a contest (and wanting to work one or the other for a mult and having to wait through it) is perhaps more frustrating than Bob and Ray in their Slow Talkers bit.

I always attributed this to the rhythm of the character breaking down or disappearing when it's too slow. At 20+, there is a clear pattern/rhythm to each letter, whereas at less than 10, the character breaks down into individual, distinct dits and dahs, and the silence between the sounds becomes material.

If you're doing it right, you don't hear the dits and dahs (no counting!) - you hear the distinctive pattern of the entire letter.

There is some merit in what you say.... however, when you're learning the code the characters are not so "long and drawn out" as they are once you develop some speed. The same applies if you learned using the Farnsworth method, fast characters and long character spacing.

This is why many of your older operators have a difficult time slowing down to 10-12 WPM for newbies. They just can't stand listening to code that slow. Sending at that speed is even worse.

I always attributed this to the rhythm of the character breaking down or disappearing when it's too slow. At 20+, there is a clear pattern/rhythm to each letter, whereas at less than 10, the character breaks down into individual, distinct dits and dahs, and the silence between the sounds becomes material.

If you're doing it right, you don't hear the dits and dahs (no counting!) - you hear the distinctive pattern of the entire letter.

There is some merit in what you say.... however, when you're learning the code the characters are not so "long and drawn out" as they are once you develop some speed. The same applies if you learned using the Farnsworth method, fast characters and long character spacing.

This is why many of your older operators have a difficult time slowing down to 10-12 WPM for newbies. They just can't stand listening to code that slow. Sending at that speed is even worse.

You guys are talking about slow converstation, but this converstation is really slow because K7GLM placed his comment nearly a year ago,

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